What Did you do Today 2022

[Swarf, Mostly!Participant @swarfmostly]

Nigel,

One make of the material you mentioned is/was called 'Rembroplast'.

I received an 'Allbrit' drawing board when my then employers closed a drawing office. It had that parallelogram rise & fall mechanism. I had dismantled the board and base for carriage but, on reassembly, fitted the large sector-shaped cast iron weights the wrong way round. When I first depressed the foot pedal, the board flew upwards, narrowly missing my chin. Had I been standing a few millimetres further forward, I'd have been eligble (except for gender ) to perform the actions for that well-known song about 'walking the Bloody Tower'!

In case any reader is thinking of making their own drawing board (seems unlikely in this CAD age ), do take note of the need to slot the screw-holes in the rear battens and to use brass washers under the heads of the round-head brass screws. Failure to do this has resulted in two of the joints opening in our solid teak refectory-style dining table because of shrinkage while parked too close to a central heating radiator. The table was made by my late father – he was a skilled cabinet maker but even he missed it! In this case, lateral shrinkage was too strong, even for Cascamite One-Shot!!

Best regards,

Swarf, Mostly!

[derek hall 1Participant @derekhall1]

Yesterday I finished making all the ball handles for the Quorn Tool and Cutter grinder I am building !

Regards to all

Derek

[JourneymanParticipant @journeyman]

Posted by Robin on 27/09/2022 11:49:47:

Today I tried inserting an ISO30 taper into the horizontal spindle of my Warco HV mill for the first time and found it did not fit. It's all wobbly. Angst.

Tried another taper, an ER collet chuck. Still no good. Ran around the workshop shouting, "Don't panic" until I was quite breathless.

Eventually tried removing the 2 driving dogs from the spindle nose and in it goes, all snuggle bunnies the way it should.

Why do I do this to myself?

Be aware with ISO 30 taper tooling that there are several different variations on a theme. They all use the same angle and power is transmitted by the drive dogs, not the taper. There are however different arrangements of the drive dogs and different draw bar threads. viz-

• ISO, NT, NMTB, DIN2080 – short parallel section at small end. Equal drive slots.
• CAT, CV, V-Flange, DIN 69871 – no parallel section. Unequal drive slots.
• BT, MAS403, DIN6383 – no parallel section. Equal drive slots.

Care needs to be taken when purchasing particularly is 2nd hand from relatively unknown sources.

John

[EmgeeParticipant @emgee]

In adition to those 30 taper shanks John listed is SKF30, this type has no provision for drive dogs and relies on the taper to transmit power, not equipped for draw bar use but is designed for retention by pull stud so is quick change tooling, standard equipment on the Emco F1 cnc milling machine and other Emco machines.
It does have a vee groove to allow the use of auto tool changing.

Emgee

[John Doe 2Participant @johndoe2]

Pretty much designed the layout of my new double garage/workshop, (designed in my head, while going to sleep every night).

It will have two zones, divided by a plastic curtain: The outer half, next to the outer double door, will be the 'dirty' zone; any sanding, drilling, planing etc will be done in this half, with the curtain closed across, and maybe with the outer door open to allow dust and shavings to "vent" out to the atmosphere. And once in a while, I can blow out all the dust with an airline. I will fit kitchen type units as drawers and cupboards for all my tools and stuff.

The air compressor will be in the garden shed, probably powered by solar cells on the shed roof, and away from the house so no noise nuisance, with a buried pipe and control wires to the garage.

The indoor half of the garage will be the clean zone; where I will have my electronics bench, my 3D printer and other dust-sensitive tools and equipment. That way, dust will be kept away from the sensitive tools and the house, and it will also help keep the heat in the house.

If I need to bring a car in to work on; I can open the curtain to allow the full area of the double garage.

 

.

 

Edited By John Doe 2 on 27/09/2022 19:23:58

[JellyParticipant @jelly]

Posted by John Doe 2 on 27/09/2022 19:17:14:

Pretty much designed the layout of my new double garage/workshop, (designed in my head, while going to sleep every night).

It will have two zones, divided by a plastic curtain: The outer half, next to the outer double door, will be the 'dirty' zone;

The indoor half of the garage will be the clean zone;

SNAP!

I'm literally in the process of doing the same thing to my workshop.

In my case to create a 1.8 x 3.2m welding bay right by the main door where I can create sparks, jets of molten slag, and plumes grinding dust with impunity, without risking it contaminating the machine tools at the other end of the garage, between the curtains and a sort of DMZ of shelving and storage, I'm hoping to be able to have machines and grinding co-exist in the same building ok.

I think this is going to mean that any woodworking gets booted outside though.

[Nigel Graham 2Participant @nigelgraham2]

Swarf, Mostly –

Thank you for the information. I'll see if anyone around here sells 'Rembroplast' or an equivalent.

My board is laminated chipboard, about 20mm thick, on a parallelogram mechanism with a very complicated brake, between two columns on a square-steel tube base – and very heavy!

I spent this evening trying to re-assemble the link-motion that supports the board itself, but as I'd envisaged never doing that, in fact plundering the steel parts for material; I'd made no sketches or photos. It's not gone together correctly, but it is potentially capable of being modified to lock it in place.

I think though I will remove all the mechanism again, leaving just the base and two posts, and fit a simple metal or wooden frame to hold the board itself at a suitable height. I don't have house-room for folding it out to any more than about 10º off vertical, and it'll be only me using it.

It did not use weights as counterbalance, but a very powerful tension-spring on a long adjusting-screw inside one of the columns. If you were not careful. and failed to slacken the spring first, removing the very heavy board would cause its underframe to leap up violently, rather dangerously.

.

Re your aside about the "CAD age " , people do still use drawing-boards. Possibly not by many engineers or architects, but they are still being made and sold. The main buyers might include artists of one sort or another..

Why am I gong to all this trouble to rebuild something I had virtually destroyed? I'd been too hasty, taking it all to bits, before discovering I cannot learn its computer-bound replacement to any serious level!

+++

AHA! Not 'Rembroplast' but an equivalent, called 'Papyroboard' , sold by a company called Orchard.

Their web-site shows a wide range of drawing-boards including A0 size with parallel-motion rules, plus light-boxes, plan-chests, etc; the publicity suggesting a wide range of work still needing these things,CAD or not.

I once used mine for taking off sections from a geology-map. Such tasks can only be done by manual plotting.

Edited By Nigel Graham 2 on 27/09/2022 23:47:43

[JellyParticipant @jelly]

Impatient as I am, I just ditched the other jobs I was partway through doing to put the curtains up, in the hope I could begin to move forward with a bigger reorganization more easily that way.

I think I've done a decent job of getting the curtains installed, and the layout works well for maximising effective use of space (there's a 210A oil cooled arc welder in frame, but totally hidden.

The whole job was about 95% moving stuff around and 5% actually installing curtains.

Need to finish the other side and trim the excess off the baffle at the top in my lunch break tomorrow, then I can really make some space.

[JasonBModerator @jasonb]

Nigel, plenty of Papyoboard for sale on the net which is the green/ivory faced board covering.

[Nigel Graham 2Participant @nigelgraham2]

Jason –

Thankyou! In fact I found it by trying to find that 'Rembroplast'

It may well have been 'Papyroboard' that I used to have years ago, on a crude board that was just a sheet of 16mm plywood..

My drawing-board is beyond full re-assembly but I can put it back into something serviceable. The actual drawing-board and parallel-motion are all intact. It's the very complicated stand that is beyond reconstruction because I don't know how it's supposed to go together, and I may have lost some parts, though not deliberately!

[Nick WheelerParticipant @nickwheeler]

Posted by Nigel Graham 2 on 28/09/2022 08:04

My drawing-board is beyond full re-assembly but I can put it back into something serviceable. The actual drawing-board and parallel-motion are all intact. It's the very complicated stand that is beyond reconstruction because I don't know how it's supposed to go together, and I may have lost some parts, though not deliberately!

A CAD model might help?

[Nigel Graham 2Participant @nigelgraham2]

Very droll, Nicholas!

A Cardboard Aided Design model, perhaps?

or Cannot Assess Design,

Cannot Analyse Details,

Completely, Absolutely Destroyed (well, part of it is)

[RobinParticipant @robin]

Posted by Journeyman on 27/09/2022 15:07:47:

Care needs to be taken when purchasing particularly is 2nd hand from relatively unknown sources.

John

How true. I have BT and NT tapers left over from the wild buying spree I went on while I waited for the mill to arrive.

All part of lifes' rich tapestry, I do like the low overhang variety.

I need more than one collet chuck because the machine has no spindle lock and 30 taper does not come with spanner flats. Thank goodness it is a non-retaining, there is precious little room for a sledge hammer between draw bar and ceiling

Robin

[SamsarandaParticipant @samsaranda]

John Doe 2,

I am interested in how many solar panels you reckon it will take to power your compressor, I fear that your shed roof may not be large enough to accommodate them all. Dave W

[RobinParticipant @robin]

Posted by roy entwistle on 27/09/2022 12:15:59:

Robin Thats life

My life improved greatly when I became old. I have no problem complying with the "old" stereotype. It is so undemanding

[Mick B1Participant @mickb1]

Completed a dozen Gauge Frame Valve Spindles for the railway's S160s:-

They're in 304 stainless – which sort of half-deserves its 'free cutting' description, but workhardens locally. Mercifully not very deeply. The only bit I didn't do on the WM250V was the 3 right-angled flats at the little end – the divvy head on the Bridgy clone offered too easy an alternative to setting it up in the vice on the vertical slide. Cutting the through-slot in the major diameter was not too difficult, but a bit time-consuming – I tried three ways using jobber drills, slot drills and four-flute end-cutting carbide endmills, but none of 'em were significantly better, quicker or easier than the others.

Major diameters I was trying to hold within +0 -0,01 mm – they go into a sort of squashable bush that I'm not really familiar with, but seems well-established in steam circles. There're one or two of them that go to -0,02 or 3, but I think they'll still be OK.

[JellyParticipant @jelly]

Quickly bashed out the remaining curtain hanging, it needs a tiny bit of finishing off to seal the edges, but it's worked pretty well.

Now I just need to complete the total reorganization of the workshop so I can get back on with projects!

[Nigel Graham 2Participant @nigelgraham2]

Finally re-assembled my drawing-board's parallelogram links (the board-support, not the drawing mechanism) into something vaguely right; but nowhere near right enough. With a collection of odd bits left over.

I think I have essentially destroyed it, and am best simply adapting the stand to a tilting but single-height arrangement.

Since I have basically wrecked the entire appliance, and do not need A0 sheet size anyway, I may cut the board to a little over A1 length. The rule-track, an aluminium extrusion, can be shortened, but shortening the vertical arm is not feasible. I would also remove all the now-useless metalwork.

This would reduce the considerable weight and take less room space.

Oh well, we all make mistakes!

[Nigel Graham 2Participant @nigelgraham2]

Temporarily secured the roof sheets on my shelter, using G-cramps, lest the rain and wind arrived.

Which they did. To think was working on it in shorts yesterday, in the sunshine!

Off to Dorchester for my Covid booster; but following the lead given me by Swarf, Mostly also to ask in Herrings (arts and craft shop) about resilient drawing-board surfacing. The name I'd found is Papyroboard but I realised others might be available.

Unfortunately no larger available than A4; though they do stock things like propelling-pencil leads.

Back home, inspected the shelter to find it good and effective allowing for its unfinished condition.

Then assembled the draughting-head on the board to establish cutting the board to A1 size – shortening it by 300 mm. I need keep a parking area off-paper for the head, plus an over-run margin at the other end.

Measuring showed if I keep the full depth I could use A0 paper on end… if really necessary!

This would reduce the board's weight by a fifth – shortening it from 1.5 to 1.3 metres

It would also obviate shortening the vertical arm of the mechanism, but closer examination showed that would be quite simple. The only problem might be tensioning a thin cable operating one of the locks; but its terminal is just an electrical-style eyelet crimped onto the wire.

It all makes sense – the manufacturers evidently made the moving parts to work on more or less any size, because the top, fixed rail and the vertical one are simply aluminium extrusions.

[JellyParticipant @jelly]

Moved the 32A socket for the welders as part of the workshop reorganization.

This finally allowed me to hook up my extraction system with an "Auto-Off-Manual" three way switch, which allows me to interlock the extraction to come on with the welding machines, or to run it manually.

I've also added an RCD socket under my welding bench to power my grinders from, to give a bit of additional protection against shock in the event of accidental cable damage.

[Nick HughesParticipant @nickhughes97026]

Bought and installed Rhino7 (Also transferred my MecSoft VisualCAM licence over to MecSoft RhinoCam).

After a few years of using Alibre Design, mainly to re-draw and correct the errors that i have found in the Peter Rich Castle Class drawings, as I slowly progress through the build (Shot of the almost complete Chassis CAD below), I expect another even steeper and frustrating learning curve ahead!

[John Doe 2Participant @johndoe2]

Posted by Samsaranda on 28/09/2022 10:07:57:

John Doe 2,

I am interested in how many solar panels you reckon it will take to power your compressor, I fear that your shed roof may not be large enough to accommodate them all. Dave W

I haven't really researched it or done the sums yet, but I can fit 6-8 panels on the shed* roof and will have an inverter and battery system. The compressor will not be a large one, and will only be used on a very occasional basis: A few moments of impact wrenching, air hammering, vacuum brake bleeding or blow-nozzle use etc. Not a huge amount.

Or, I put those 6-8 panels on the main house with the others that I plan to fit there. The shed roof though is in a perfect location, sun-wise – better than the house roof – so it seems a shame to waste that resource. I don't think that adding the remote cells to the main cells electrically would be viable, owing to loses, but I am mostly thinking aloud at the moment.

 

*actually a well-built brick and tile single garage. 

.

Edited By John Doe 2 on 01/10/2022 12:08:10

[Frances IoMParticipant @francesiom58905]

shopped at Lidl – new today, among a large range of new offerings, was the 150mm digital caliper (.01mm claimed accuracy) for ?9.99 (described as measuring stick on receipt) interestingly the cell battery is now the larger CR25032 – not as smooth to operate as their old offer – the frame feels as tho not quite finished.

Last week they had their tyre depth measures at the same price (reduced from the old price) bought one and found it would accept the same scale as used by the magnetic DROs sold by Arc – I have a couple of offcuts from using these on my mill so I can gain a slightly larger depth coverage by using an offcut.

Edited By Frances IoM on 01/10/2022 19:54:23

[BazyleParticipant @bazyle]

Spent the day at the G1MRA 75 Anniversary Exhibition at Bicester. Helped to man the Gaugeone3DCircle stand where we were showing what amazing results can be achieved in this scale by 3D printing,
I have been part of the Groups.io group for over a year attending the weekly zoom calls so it was great to meet some of the regulars on that in person though after so many online meetings it seemed like they were old friends I had known for years.

Two members of St Albans DMES turned up there and even one other from Exeter DMES though not the furthest traveller as apparently two had come from St Austell.

Still another day to run if you want to go there, The 5in ground level chaps were there, somo LGB and 16mm stuff too.

[Mike HurleyParticipant @mikehurley60381]

Like Frances IoM, also went to Lidl specifically to buy their advertised digital angle gauge at £9.99. Stated as 0.1 resolution, OK for most general jobs if not for the occasional high precision one.

Unfortunatley, the wife was with me (bless her), so by the time we had got my item, plus 2 new pillows and a matress protector, my 9.99 'bargain' only came in at about £45, phew what a saving! (! wonder how many other forum members have had similar happen?)

Still, I suppose I shall be sleeping on them ( not the angle gauge) …….

regards, Mike

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